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His Divine Shadow
Events Prior to Season 1 2008 years prior to the events of "I Worship His Shadow", the Divine Shadow of that time was responsible for the extermination of Brunnis-2, and the destruction of the Brunnen-G themselves. In addition, the then Divine Shadow personally killed Kai with a knife and ended Kai's life. However the Divine Shadow deemed him worthy of a punishment worse than death (for crashing his fighter into the Foreshadow) by having his body preserved and made into a Divine Assassin, to do his Shadow's bidding whenever necessary. Episode 1.1: "I Worship his Shadow" 2008 years later, a former Divine Shadow (not the same one from the prologue) is nearing death and the Divine Clerics rush him to the ceremonial place, where they urge him to perform "The Kiss", transferring his essence into the host of the next Divine Shadow. The Clerics are in a hurry and mention that the new host may not be fully cleansed, however they are out of time so he will have to do. The Clerics push the dying Shadow on a gurney over to a tattooed man (Lex Gigeroff) who is suspended on a device with a funnel like piece sticking in his mouth. The dying Shadow performs the kiss and his essence is transferred to the next Divine Shadow, almost immediately awakening him. The Clerics saw off the top of the dying Divine Shadow's head and extract his brain, placing electronic diodes into it and mounting it onto a device with a clear-plastic face mask covering it. The new Divine Shadow steps off of the platform and ascends upon a pillar to adjourn with the Divine Predecessors, making them aware of his authority and his plans for the universe and the Lexx. The new Divine Shadow breaks a sacred rule by removing the Divine Predecessors from their pedestals on the Cluster and having them placed aboard the Lexx as a part of a plot to destroy every planet in the Light Zone: a plot the new Divine Shadow intends to personally execute. Later the Divine Shadow is alerted to the chaos of the Cluster by an officer, and he announces that he will personally deal with the issue as well as the officer for interrupting his meditation. The Divine Shadow awakens Kai, Last of the Brunnen-G, now a Divine Assassin, to deal with Thodin and prevent the Lexx from leaving the Cluster. The Divine Shadow learns of Kai's defection and realizes that the prophecy that the Predecessors spoke of may in fact be true, and promptly apologizes to his Predecessors before having his own brain extracted, allowing the essence of the Shadow to fully consume his body. The Shadow notifies the commanding officer of the Megashadow to destroy the Lexx if he does not return, thus ending the prophecy of the Divine Shadow's Fall. While on board the Lexx, the Divine Shadow deals with Kai's betrayal personally by sending ephemeral waves flowing at him, debilitating Kai momentarily until Zev and Stan begin destroying Divine Predecessors to serve as a distraction allowing Kai to strike the Divine Shadow in the face with his brace. The essence of His Divine Shadow leaves its mortally wounded Host Body body and swarms around Kai, temporarily overwhelming him before leaving the Lexx and returning to the Cluster. Episode 1.4: "Gigashadow" When His Divine Shadow's essence returns to The Cluster, it resides in the brain of its former host and awaits the Rebirth, presumably presiding over the Cleansing and continuing to issue instructions to subordinates. During the Rebirth, a ceremony designed to return His Divine Shadow's Insect essence to its natural body, the Gigashadow, a group of rebel clerics, led by Yottskry disrupt the ceremony, delaying the Rebirth and damaging His Divine Shadow's human brain. When Kai and Zev return to the Cluster to obtain more protoblood for Kai, they find His Divine Shadow's brain. It claims that its evil half was destroyed, and only its poet half remains. It offers to recite a sonnet for Zev and asks Kai to kill it. Kai crushes the brain and obtains its memories, as well as a copy of the insect essence. Soon afterwards, Yottskry picks up the damaged brain and becomes possessed by His Shadow. His Shadow then pulls Yottskry towards the brain of the Gigashadow, returning its essence to its original body after several thousand years of hibernation. The Gigashadow awakens, breaking free of the Cluster and persuing the Lexx in order to kill Kai and end the Prophecy. It pursues the Lexx to the Fractal Core, which it cannot pass through because its mass is too large. However, after the Lexx passes through, the Gigashadow extends a sort of tentacle through the fractal core into the Dark Zone and attempts to use its insect essence to destroy the crew of the Lexx. But Squish, a cluster lizard larvae adopted by Kai, attacks its brain startling it and causing it to collide with the fractal core, which leads to the destruction of both the core, the Gigashadow's body, and the Divine Shadow essence residing in the Gigashadow. However, a copy of His Divine Shadow's essence managed to survive inside of Kai. Season 2 and Beyond Even though His Divine Shadow does not play any significant roles in the series other than a few flashbacks, and as mindless zombies (in ) it can be assumed that since the same essence that possessed the Divine Shadow possessed Kai (and later Mantrid) that the Divine Shadow had some influence over the events that occurred from Season 2 to Season 4. The Divine Shadow's insect essence is what imbued Mantrid with a desire to destroy humanity, eventually leading Mantrid to destroy the Light Universe. Vehicles & Vessels Both His Divine Shadows had their own personal flagships, the Foreshadow and the Megashadow commanded by the Divine Shadow and the Last Divine Shadow respectively. Though the Megashadow has not been seen destroying any planets, it can be assumed that it holds the same power to destroy an entire planet as its predecessor Foreshadow, but in a much bigger scope since 2008 years have passed and advancements in technology would be more than likely. Trivia #The TV Tropes for the Divine Shadow are, "Big Bad", and "Evil Overlord" "Genocide backfire". #"Shadow of God" is the traditional styling used by Persia's Shah (king). #"worship his shadow" is old-fashioned slang for being deeply smitten with someone romantically. E.g. "Jenny worships Fred's shadow." #The differences between a fully cleansed Shadow and only a half cleansed one seem to be significant as the last Divine Shadow was more erratic and vicious, ordering officers to kill one another and murder themselves and has zero patience for any of his subordinates. #Even though the last Divine Shadow awakened Kai and sent him to guard the Lexx and thus enacting the prophecy, one could say that the Divine Shadow from 2008 years ago ensured the fall of the Divine Order by saving Kai and ordering him to become a Divine Assassin. #Even though Kai is immune to death, his Divine Shadow's Ephemeral Waves seemed to effect Kai greatly to the point of slowing his entire body down and possibly causing a completely molecular break-up, which is unusual since the standard black pack had zero effect on Kai. #His Divine Shadow has shown the ability to fly by extending bat-like wings from his sleeves this is similar to how Vlad escaped Kai, a Divine Executioner and servant of the Divine Order. #There is a strong possibility that in beginning of , the procedure of transferring Divine Essence from old host to new host was not conducted in the usual manner, but using a chaotic emergent procedure because one of the clerics states that they have no time to fully cleanse new host. Existence of dark room where His Divine Shadow brain was automatically removed, gives clues that this room is place where standard procedure of host swapping should happen in a manner similar to automated judicial process. Additional Information The last Divine Shadow was played by Lex Gigeroff but voiced by Walter Borden. Borden also voiced the insect in Mantrid, and the voice again of His Divine Shadow in Brigadoom. Borden also played the Wozzard and Dr. Ernst Longbore. Lex Gigeroff played both incarnations of His Divine Shadow in (ie, the bound thug who becomes the modern day His Divine Shadow, and the man in the His Shadow costume), as well as His Divine Shadow in Brigadoom. The first incarnation of His Divine Shadow was voiced by John Dunsworth, who also voiced the Divine Predecessor that Kai destroys. See Also Category:Lexx characters Category:Fictional dictators Category:Fictional mass murderers Category:Fictional cult leaders Category:Fictional commanders Category:Fictional insects Category:Fictional centenarians Category:Fictional parasites Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1997